Simply Lasagna

On one of my random searches through All Recipes I found this lasagna recipe. It looked simple enough, so I decided to try it. This was the first lasagna that I made myself. I’m used to just buying a frozen one and tossing it in the oven, this one took a tad more work than that though :P But it’s still pretty straight forward and is really tasty!!

Method

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Brown the hamburger in a large skillet on medium-high heat with the spices. Meanwhile, mix 1-1/4 cups of the mozzarella cheese, 1/4 cup of the parmesan cheese, the ricotta cheese, the parsley, and the egg until well blended; set aside.

Drain meat; return to skillet. Stir in pasta sauce. Pour water into empty sauce jar; cover and shake well. Add to skillet; stir until well blended.

Spread 1 cup of the meat sauce onto bottom of 13×9-inch baking dish; top with layers of 5 lasagna noodles (3 lengthwise, and 2 broken to fit the ends if needed), one-third of the ricotta cheese mixture and 1 cup of the meat sauce. Repeat layers two more times. Top with remaining 3 noodles and remaining meat sauce. Sprinkle with remaining 1-1/4 cups mozzarella cheese and remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Cover tightly with greased foil.

Photo Walkthrough:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

The first step is to brown the ground beef and drain it. Easy enough, but the recipe calls for unseasoned ground beef. I personally like a little bit of flavor in my meals, so I dug out one of my mom’s cookbooks and found the recipe she had written for Hearty Pizza Loaf (which by the way, is absolutely delicious) and followed her directions for seasoning the hamburger. I added: 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp garlic salt, 2 tbsp instant minced onion (although you can use 1/2 cup fresh chopped onion too). It gave the meat a nice flavor, so I definitely recommend this alteration.

Next combine the mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese, fresh chopped parsley, and egg. I have to admit, it was pretty fun to mix it all up lol Also note, the recipe says to use pre-shredded cheese from Kraft. I personally used blocks of mozzarella and parmesan and grated them myself. For the ricotta I just bought a tub of it by Precious.

Then add the jar of sauce to the meat. I used a 26oz jar of Ragu since we had plenty sitting in the pantry. After you add the sauce to the meat, combine it well. Then fill the empty jar with water, put the lid back on and shake it well. Then add it to the skillet and combine again.

Now that all the pieces are prepped, it’s time to start putting the lasagna together! Here’s how it works. Pour 1 cup of the meat sauce into a 13×9 baking dish. Don’t worry like I did about how watery the sauce looks. It helps the noodles cook. After adding the meat sauce, you add the uncooked lasagna noodles. The recipe said to add 3 noodles, but I noticed that (at least in my baker), it left the ends uncovered. So after counting and realizing I had enough leftover noodles, I broke some to fit the end pieces.

After adding the noodles, add 1/3 of the cheese mixture and spread it out. It can be kind of tricky, so don’t get frustrated. Just try to spread it as evenly as possible! Then add another cup of meat sauce. That’s pretty much how the layers work, just repeat it two more times.

After finishing the third layer, top it with the remaining 3 noodles (and add 2 more broken pieces to cover the ends if necessary). Finish it off by combining the remaining 1/4 cup of parmesan and 1 1/4 cups of mozzarella and sprinkle on top of the pasta. This is how mine looked after it was all put together!

Now cover it with foil (it says greased foil, which I did when I made it, but I don’t know if it really makes a difference) and bake it at 350 degrees F for an hour. After that hour remove the foil, put it back in the oven, and continue baking it for another 15 minutes.

After it’s done, pull it out of the oven and let it rest for 15 minutes and then enjoy! I know mine looks kind of silly (at least I thought so!). The noodles bubbled up a bit and my sister agreed with me that it looked as though it had morphed into chicken enchiladas! But I assure you, it was indeed lasagna and it tasted great!

I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on the recipe, and how it turned out for you if you tried it!